Next to our research projects, the Centre for BOLD Cities has been endowed with three professors by special appointment.
Prof. dr. Anne Fleur van Veenstra
As of November 1st, 2023, dr. Anne Fleur van Veenstra has been installed as professor by special appointment of Governance of data and algorithms for urban policy. The special chair is established at Leiden University and is affiliated with our Centre.
Anne Fleur is Scientific Director of TNO Vector, the department of TNO for Societal Innovation and Strategy.
She will fill the special chair by connecting the applied, action-oriented research of TNO Vector with the scientific research of Leiden University and the impact ambition of the Centre for BOLD Cities.
About Anne Fleur van Veenstra
Anne Fleur van Veenstra is Scientific Director of TNO Vector, Centre for Societal Innovation and Strategy. She conducts research on the role and impact of digitalization within governments and toward regulation of digital technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI). She obtained a PhD in digital governance (E-government) at TU Delft.
Prof. dr. Marjolijn Das
Prof. Dr. Marjolijn Das has been installed as Urban Statistics professor by special appointment at the Centre for BOLD Cities since 2017. In 2022 her appointment has been extended for another five years. Her research focuses on social urban topics, in which she exerts large-scale registry data. The position is funded by CBS (Statistics Netherlands) and established at Erasmus University. In her research, Marjolijn Das focusses on the interaction between city residents and their social networks. How does an urban environment influence one's lifecycle, and what role do urban social networks play in this matter? In order to answer these questions, Das maps family networks throughout The Netherlands. Diversity and background and geographical dispersion should help explain how the nearness of family may influence the lifecycles of urban residents.
About Marjolijn Das
Marjolijn Das is a senior statistical researcher at Statistics Netherlands and conducts social science research in the field of spatial demography using register data. In addition, since 2001 she has been involved in the development, organization and exploitation of the System of Social Statistical Files (SSB) of Statistics Netherlands. Das obtained her PhD in behavioral biology from Utrecht University.
Prof. dr. Roland Ortt
Prof. dr. Roland Ortt has been endowed professor in Urban Innovation Management at the Centre for BOLD Cities since 2022 for five years. Real change in a city requires a combination of new policies, new behavioural patterns of interest groups and new business models of involved companies and organisations. How can these different types of innovations be combined in practice? This is one of the central questions of this chair, which has been established by the Netherlands Study Centre for Technology Trends (STT) and is housed at Erasmus University. The objective of the chair of 'Urban Innovation Management' is to gain more insight into the innovation processes in an urban environment in order to strengthen innovations in cities with by contributing knowledge. This is necessary because a strong growth in the number of citizens living in cities is creating problems, such as congestion, pollution, segregation and crime, that require innovative solutions.
About Roland Ortt
Roland Ortt is associate professor of technology and innovation management at the Faculty of Engineering and Management of Delft University of Technology. Previously, he worked as an R&D manager for a telecommunications company. His research focuses on the development and diffusion of technologies, and on niche strategies to commercialise high-tech systems.